Chapter 2
Facing the AFQT Head-On
IN THIS CHAPTER
Considering computer versus paper tests
Understanding how the AFQT is scored
Knowing what score you need to enlist
Taking the test again to get a better score
Everyone looking to enlist in the U.S. military has to take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB). The ASVAB consists of nine separately timed subtests, which the military primarily uses to determine your aptitude to learn various military jobs.
Four of the ASVAB subtests are used to compute the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) score. This score determines whether you’re qualified to join the military service of your choice.Each branch of military service has its own minimum AFQT score standards. Your AFQT score tells the military what your chances are of making it successfully through your enlistment period. The services have conducted countless studies over the years, and the results are clear: The higher your AFQT score, the greater the chances that you’ll successfully complete your enlistment contract.
As you can imagine, the AFQT score is very important to the military recruiting commands. If you have a high AFQT score, you can expect your recruiter to be wining and dining you, offering you all kinds of enlistment incentives, and telling all his coworkers that you’re his very best friend. On the other hand, if your AFQT score is below the minimum standards set by that service, you can expect your recruiter to say, “Don’t call us. We’ll call you.” If you have a qualifying AFQT score that’s mediocre, you can probably still enlist, but you’ll most likely miss out on many enlistment goodies, such as enlistment bonuses. (Maybe you’ll get a free T-shirt.)
In this chapter, I explain which of the four ASVAB subtests are used to compute your AFQT score and how the military calculates the score. I also tell you the minimum qualifying AFQT scores for each service branch and explain how you can request a retest if your score is too low.
Looking at the Big ASVAB Picture
Depending on where and why you take the test, you may encounter two different versions of the ASVAB: the computerized version and the pencil-and-paper version.
The computerized version of the ASVAB (CAT-ASVAB) contains nine separately timed subtests. On the CAT-ASVAB, Auto Information and Shop Information are separated into two different tests, whereas they’re combined on the paper version. In Table 2-1, I outline the nine ASVAB subtests in the order that you take them; the bolded subtests are used to calculate the AFQT score.
TABLE 2-1 Details about the ASVAB Subtests
Subtest |
Questions/Time (CAT-ASVAB) |
Questions/Time (Paper Version) |
Content |
General Science |
16 questions, 8 minutes |
25 questions, 11 minutes |
General principles of biological and physical sciences |
Arithmetic Reasoning |
16 questions, 39 minutes |
30 questions, 36 minutes |
Math word problems |
Word Knowledge |
16 questions, 8 minutes |
35 questions, 11 minutes |
Correct meaning of a word and best synonym or antonym for a given word |
Paragraph Comprehension |
11 questions, 22 minutes |
15 questions, 13 minutes |
Questions based on paragraphs (usually a few hundred words) that you read |
Mathematics Knowledge |
16 questions, 20 minutes |
25 questions, 24 minutes |
High school math |
Electronics Information |
16 questions, 8 minutes |
20 questions, 9 minutes |
Electricity and electronic principles and terminology |
Mechanical Comprehension |
16 questions, 20 minutes |
25 questions, 19 minutes |
Basic mechanical and physical principles |
Auto and Shop Information |
11 Auto Information questions, 7 minutes; 11 Shop Information questions, 6 minutes |
25 questions, 11 minutes |
Knowledge of automobiles, shop terminology, and tool use |
Assembling Objects |
16 questions, 16 minutes |
25 questions, 15 minutes |
Spatial orientation |
You can’t take just the four AFQT subtests of the ASVAB. You have to take all nine subtests in order to get a qualifying AFQT score. The military isn’t set up to give partial ASVAB tests. For example, if you take the ASVAB and get line scores that qualify you for the military job you want but your AFQT score is too low to join, you have to retake the entire ASVAB — not just the four subtests that make up the AFQT — to get a higher AFQT score.
During the initial enlistment process, your service branch determines your military job or enlistment program based on the minimum line scores it has established. Line scores are computed from the various subtests of the ASVAB. If you get an appropriate score in the appropriate areas, you can get the job you want — as long as that job is available and you meet other qualification factors.
The computerized ASVAB (CAT-ASVAB)
Nobody really cares about the AFQT score except the military — and it cares a lot! Because you’re reading this book, I’m willing to bet that you’re interested in joining the military. And if you’re interested in joining the military, you’ll most likely take the computerized version of the ASVAB. That’s because most people taking the ASVAB for the purpose of joining the military take it at a Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS), and all these places use the computerized test.
The computerized version of the ASVAB — called the CAT-ASVAB (CAT stands for Computerized Adaptive Testing) — has the same questions as the paper version. The CAT-ASVAB adapts the questions it offers you based on your level of proficiency. (That’s why it’s called adaptive.) The first test question is of average difficulty. If you answer this question correctly, the next question is more difficult. If you answer the first question incorrectly, the computer gives you an easier question. (By contrast, on the pencil-and-paper ASVAB, easy, medium, and hard questions are presented randomly.) On the ASVAB, harder questions are worth more points than easier questions are, so you want to get to them sooner to maximize your score.
Pros of taking the CAT-ASVAB
Maybe it’s because most people are more comfortable in front of a computer than they are with paper and pencil, but military recruiters have noted that among applicants who’ve taken both the paper-based version and the computerized version of the ASVAB, recruits tend to score slightly higher on the computerized version of the test.
When you take the CAT-ASVAB, the computer automatically calculates and prints your standard scores for each subtest and your line scores for each service branch. (If you’re interested in line scores, which are used for military job-classification purposes, you may want to pick up a copy of ASVAB For Dummies [Wiley].) This machine is a pretty smart cookie; it also calculates your AFQT score on the spot. With the computerized version, you usually know whether you qualify for military enlistment on the same day you take the test and, if so, which jobs you qualify for.
Cons of taking the CAT-ASVAB
Unlike the pencil-and-paper version, you can’t skip questions or change your answers after you enter them on the CAT-ASVAB. This restriction can make taking the test harder for some people. Instead of being able to go through and immediately answer all the questions you’re sure of and then come back to the questions that require you to do some head scratching, you have to answer each question as it comes. Also, judging how much time to spend on a difficult question before guessing and moving on can be tough. Finally, if you have a few minutes at the end of the test, you can’t go back and check to make sure you marked the correct answer to each question.
The pencil-and-paper test
Most people who take the pencil-and-paper version of the ASVAB do so under the ASVAB Career Exploration Program, a cooperative program between the Department of Education and the Department of Defense at high schools all across the United States. Although the results of this version can be used for military enlistment purposes (if taken within two years of enlistment), its primary purpose is to serve as a tool for guidance counselors to use when recommending possible careers to high school students.
You can also take the pencil-and-paper version for purposes of enlistment through a recruiter, but that’s not done very often these days. In unusual circumstances, when it’s impractical for an applicant to travel to a MEPS location, recruiters can make arrangements for applicants to take the pencil-and-paper version at a Military Entrance Test (MET) site.
Another version of the ASVAB is the Armed Forces Classification Test (AFCT). This version is used by folks already in the military who want to improve their ASVAB scores for the purposes of retraining for a different military job. Except for the name of the exam, the AFCT is exactly the same as the other versions of the ASVAB.
Pros of taking the paper-and-pencil test
The paper-based test allows you to skip questions that you don’t know the answer to and come back to them later. You can’t do that on the CAT-ASVAB. This option can be a real help when you’re racing against the clock and want to get as many answers right as possible. You can change an answer on the subtest you’re currently working on, but you can’t change an answer on a subtest after the time for that subtest has expired.
You can mark up the exam booklet as much as you want. If you skip a question, you can circle the number of the question in your booklet to remind yourself to go back to it. If you don’t know the answer to a question, you can cross off the answers that seem unlikely or wrong to you and then guess based on the remaining answers.
Cons of taking the paper-and-pencil test
On the pencil-and-paper version, harder questions are intermingled with easier questions, so you may find yourself spending too much time trying to figure out the answer to a question that’s too hard for you, and you may miss answering some easier questions at the end of the subtest because you ran out of time. The result: Your overall score will be lower.
The paper answer sheets are scored by an optical scanning machine. The machine has a conniption when it comes across an incompletely filled-in answer circle or stray pencil marks and will often stubbornly refuse to give you credit for these questions, even if you answered correctly.
Scoring the AFQT
The military uses some pretty complicated calculations to determine applicants’ AFQT scores. Because harder questions carry more weight than easy questions do, the military can’t give you a letter grade or a percentage of questions that you answered correctly; that wouldn’t tell the armed forces exactly how much you know about each subject.
Lots of people (mistakenly) call the AFQT score their “ASVAB score.” You commonly hear someone say, “I got a 67 on the ASVAB,” or “My ASVAB score was 92.” That’s not correct; it implies that the AFQT is derived from all nine subtests of the ASVAB, and it’s not. The AFQT score is computed from just four of the ASVAB subtests — the four subtests of the ASVAB that measure your math and vocabulary and reading skills (see “Looking at the Big ASVAB Picture” earlier in this chapter).
In this section, I explain how the AFQT is scored.
Understanding raw scores
The military scores each subtest of the ASVAB by using a raw score. A raw score is the total number of points you receive on each subtest of the ASVAB. You don’t see your raw scores on the printout you receive from your recruiter after completing the test. The recruiter walks you back to the waiting area and retrieves two or three copies of your scores on a printout that includes all your line scores for each branch, your AFQT percentile, and some other information.
You can’t use the practice tests in this book (or any other ASVAB or AFQT study guide) to calculate your probable ASVAB scores. ASVAB scores are calculated using raw scores, and raw scores aren’t determined simply from the number of right or wrong answers. On the actual ASVAB, harder questions are worth more points than easier questions.
Computing the verbal expression score
The military uses the verbal expression (VE) score to measure your ability to communicate. The score goes toward computing the AFQT score as well as many of the military’s line scores. The military brass (or at least their computers) determine your VE score by first adding the value of your Word Knowledge (WK) raw score to your Paragraph Comprehension (PC) raw score. The result is then converted to a scaled score ranging from 20 to 62.
Getting the AFQT score formula
To get your AFQT raw score, the computer doubles your VE score and then adds your Arithmetic Reasoning (AR) score and your Mathematics Knowledge (MK) score to it. Here’s the formula:
You don’t get to see what your AFQT raw score is on your ASVAB score sheet. Instead, the computer converts it into a percentile that shows you how you stack up against a baseline testing group.
Normalizing the percentile score
Your AFQT raw score is converted to an AFQT percentile score, ranging from 1 to 99. How does that work? In 1997, the Department of Defense conducted a “Profile of American Youth” study, which examined the AFQT raw scores of a national sample of 18- to 23-year-olds who took the ASVAB during that year.
Your AFQT percentile score is derived by comparing your AFQT raw score to those of the approximately 14,000 young people who took part in the study. For example, an AFQT percentile score of 50 means that you scored as well as or better than 50 percent of the individuals included in the 1997 study.
Making Sense of Minimum Qualifying Scores
The primary purpose of the AFQT percentile score is to determine whether you qualify for the military service of your choice. Each of the branches has its own priorities, so they all have different minimum qualifying scores.
Considering the AFQT tier categories
AFQT scores are grouped into five categories based on the percentile score ranges shown in Table 2-2. People who score in Categories I and II tend to be above average in trainability; those in Category III, average; those in Category IV, below average; and those in Category V, markedly below average.
TABLE 2-2 AFQT Tiers
Category |
Percentile Score |
I |
93–99 |
II |
65–92 |
III A |
50–64 |
III B |
31–49 |
IV A |
21–30 |
IV B |
16–20 |
IV C |
10–15 |
V |
0–9 |
If your AFQT percentile score falls into Category I, all the military services want you — probably very badly. They also want you if your score falls into Category II or Category IIIA.
If your score falls into Category IIIB, you may or may not be able to enlist, depending in large part on how your chosen branch is currently doing on making its recruiting goals.
Congress has directed that the military can’t accept Category V recruits or more than 4 percent of recruits from Category IV. If you’re in Category IV, you must have a high-school diploma to be eligible for enlistment; you can’t do it with a high-school equivalency certificate. Even so, if your score falls into Category IV, your chances of enlistment are very small.
Making the military cut
Each of the services has established minimum AFQT qualification scores within its respective recruiting regulations. Keep in mind that minimum scores can change instantly when the needs of the services change, so getting a high score is your best bet in order to remain competitive.
- Army (including Army National Guard and Army Reserves): The Army requires a minimum AFQT score of 31 for those with a high-school diploma and a score of 50 for those with a high-school equivalency certificate. When the Army is experiencing high recruiting and reenlistment rates, it has been known to temporarily increase its qualifying AFQT score minimum to as high as 50.
-
Air Force (including Air National Guard and Air Force Reserves): Air Force recruits must score at least 36 points on the AFQT to qualify for enlistment. In actuality, the vast majority (over 70 percent) of those accepted for an Air Force enlistment score 50 or above. For those who have a high-school equivalency certificate rather than a high-school diploma, the minimum is 65.
You’re more likely to be struck by lightning than to enlist in the Air Force without a high-school diploma. Only about 0.5 percent of all Air Force enlistments each year hold high-school equivalency certificates. - Navy: Navy recruits must score at least 35 on the AFQT to qualify for enlistment. For those with high-school equivalency certificates, the minimum score is 50. Only between 5 and 10 percent of recruits can actually enlist with a high-school equivalency certificate, and those who do must also be at least 19 years old and show that they have a work history.
- Navy Reserves: The Navy is the only branch for which the requirements for the Navy Reserves are different from the requirements for the branch itself. The Navy Reserves requires a minimum score of 31 on the AFQT for those with a high-school diploma and 50 for those with a high-school equivalency certificate.
- Marine Corps (including Marine Corps Reserves): Marine Corps recruits must score at least 32. Candidates with a high-school equivalency certificate must score a minimum of 50 on the AFQT to be considered. The Marine Corps limits high-school equivalency enlistments to 5 to 10 percent per year.
- Coast Guard (including Coast Guard Reserves): The Coast Guard requires a minimum of 40 points on the AFQT. A waiver is possible for applicants with prior service if their ASVAB line scores qualify them for a specific job and they’re willing to enlist in that job. For the very few people (less than 5 percent) who are allowed to enlist with a high-school equivalency certificate, the minimum AFQT score is 50.
Meeting the minimum qualifying score for the service of your choice is no guarantee of enlistment. During good recruiting times, each branch gets more qualified applicants than it has room for … and that means the military can pick and choose which applicants to accept and which ones to turn away. Usually, rejections are based on ASVAB scores, physical fitness, and what the military calls medical readiness (they’re not going to pick you if they’ll need to patch you up before shipping you out).
Also, enlistment incentives such as enlistment bonuses and college loan repayment deals are often tied to minimum AFQT scores. As with quotas, this situation is subject to change at any time based on each service’s current recruiting needs.
Retaking the Test
You can’t actually “fail” the AFQT, but you can fail to achieve a high enough score to enlist in the service you want. If your AFQT score is too low, you need to work on one (or more) of four areas: Math Knowledge, Arithmetic Reasoning, Paragraph Comprehension, or Word Knowledge. The military uses your scores in these areas to calculate your AFQT score. Parts 2 and 3 of this book are specifically designed to help you improve your scores on these four subtests. When you’re sure you’re ready, you can apply (through your recruiter) for a retest.
ASVAB tests are valid for two years, as long as you aren’t in the military. In most cases, after you join the military, your ASVAB scores remain valid as long as you’re in. In other words, except in a few cases, you can use your enlistment ASVAB scores to qualify for retraining (getting a different job) years later.
After you take an initial ASVAB test (taking the ASVAB in high school doesn’t count as an initial test), you can retake the test after 30 days. After the retest, you must wait at least six months before taking the ASVAB again. There’s no lifetime limit on how many times you can retest as long as you still meet the other requirements and a recruiter is still willing to work with you.
When you retake the ASVAB, the score on your most recent test is what counts. If you score lower on the retest, that’s the score that’s used for your military enlistment.
The bad news is that you can’t retake the ASVAB on a whim or whenever you feel like it. Each of the services has its own rules.
Army
The Army allows a retest only if
- Your previous ASVAB test has expired. (Remember: Test scores are valid for two years.)
- You failed to achieve an AFQT score high enough to qualify for enlistment.
- Unusual circumstances occur. For example, if you’re called away from the test because of an emergency, you can retake the test.
Army recruiters aren’t allowed to schedule a retest for the sole purpose of increasing scores so applicants can qualify for enlistment incentives, meet line score requirements for specific jobs, or qualify for special enlistment programs.
Air Force
The Air Force doesn’t allow you to retest after you’ve enlisted in the Delayed Entry Program (DEP). Current policy allows retesting of applicants who aren’t in the DEP but already have a qualifying AFQT score. Retesting is authorized when the applicant’s current line scores limit the service’s ability to match an Air Force skill with his or her qualifications.
These days, you can’t just take the ASVAB, undergo a medical examination, and head straight out to basic training. You have to wait your turn. The military has only so many basic training slots each month, and it has to reserve a slot for you (often several months in the future). To ensure your commitment, the services enlist you in the DEP. Under this program, you’re enlisted in the inactive reserves or in the ready reserves while waiting for your basic training date to arrive.
Navy
The Navy allows you to retake the test if your previous ASVAB test has expired or you’ve failed to achieve a qualifying AFQT score for enlistment in the Navy.
Recruits in the Navy’s DEP can’t retest.
Marine Corps
The Marine Corps will authorize a retest if your previous test is expired. Otherwise, recruiters can request a retest as long as the initial scores don’t appear to reflect your true capability (considering your education, training, and experience).
Additionally, the retest can’t be requested solely because your initial test scores didn’t meet the standards prescribed for specific military job qualification.
Coast Guard
For Coast Guard enlistments, six months must elapse since your last test before you may retest for the sole purpose of raising scores to qualify for a particular enlistment option. The Coast Guard Recruiting Center may authorize retesting after 30 days have passed since an initial ASVAB test if substantial reason exists to believe that your initial AFQT score or subtest scores don’t reflect your education, training, or experience.